


Kankri: Revive.

by qotgs



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Rainbow Drinkers, SBURB/SGRUB (Homestuck), Temporary Character Death, They're 6 sweeps here, Vampire Bites, You could probably interpret this as pale if you want to, Younger characters, tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25770832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qotgs/pseuds/qotgs
Summary: The Seer of Blood must revive the fallen Maid of Space with a kiss.
Relationships: Porrim Maryam & Kankri Vantas
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Kankri: Revive.

**Author's Note:**

> We know that Porrim must have died at some point to become a rainbow drinker, and I was wondering who might have been the one to revive her. I thought it would be sweet and a nice parallel to Kanaya and Karkat if it was Kankri who did it.
> 
> Notes about my characterization of Kankri at the end of the fic.

Everything happens so fast.

You and Porrim are kicking some serious imp ass, fighting side by side in the Land of Rainbows and Frogs, and you've never felt more liberated. Beforus is gone, and you are so glad to be rid of it. No more being looked down on by highbloods. No more being treated as if you can’t take care of yourself. No more adults talking about you as if you aren’t in the room, planning out your life for you and debating each other on just how long your lifespan will be, anyway. None of that. Now it’s just you and your friends, and you feel like you can take on anything.

Your riflekind specibus is finally being put to good use. On Beforus, strife specibi are typically seen more as a precaution than anything else for lowbloods. You’ve only ever been given the opportunity to practice shooting at inanimate targets before, and even then your adult custodian was reluctant to let you even hold a weapon. That life is far behind you now, though, and you feel like a natural. These imps are simply no match for you, or for Porrim and her axe, for that matter.

Suddenly, though, things change. You look over at Porrim, silently admiring how she somehow manages to look graceful even while chopping off an imp’s head with a deadly weapon. You smile at her, and she smiles back at you, but then her expression darkens.

“Kankri!”

She drops her axe and runs towards you, roughly shoving you to the side. You slide across the rocky ground, only able to look up at the sky full of rainbows above you. Once you stop, your gaze lowers just slightly, and you can see what caused your friend’s panic.

There had been a huge ogre behind you that you hadn’t noticed, and it had bashed its giant fist into a rock formation above you, causing the whole thing to come crumbling down. You can only watch as it seems to fall in slow motion. There is a terrible thud, and a small splash of jade green. Your eyes widen with realization and horror.

“NO!” You stare up at the hideous, stupid ogre, and all of the anger that has been bubbling below the surface your entire life seems to overflow all at once. You take aim and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot until the creature explodes into a giant pile of grist that you don’t give a single shit about.

There don’t seem to be any more enemies nearby. All is quiet. You’re panting, still staring at where the ogre once stood. Suddenly, the planet seems to turn blurry and red. You blink, and it’s back to normal, but then it happens again. Oh. You’re crying.

You snap out of your stupor and stand up on thin, wobbly legs, leaving your weapon behind. You run to your best friend and kneel down.

“Porrim?” You can hardly even see her. Half her body is trapped underneath the boulder. You grab underneath her arms and use all of your strength to pull her out. “Porrim?” You speak to her again, and nudge her arm, but she doesn’t respond. She feels cold, even for a troll of her caste.

Her torso looks oddly twisted, and she is bleeding. A lot. Her hair is covering her face. You gently move it aside. Her eyes are closed. She almost looks like she’s sleeping, but her chest is unmoving, and no air escapes her lips.

She is dead.

“No...” Your voice shakes and your whole body trembles. “No, please...” Pale red teardrops fall onto her lifeless face, and you quickly wipe them off with your sleeve, and then wipe your own eyes. You’re wearing her sweater. It’s mostly black, with a jade green trim, and her sign carefully embroidered on the upper right of the chest. She lent it to you when you first met her here on her planet. She said that you looked freezing without a shirt. You reluctantly accepted her gift, but you were grateful for it, even if it is too big on you. She promised that she would make you your own when she had time.

“Damn it, Porrim...!” You pound your fists on the ground. You feel the rough terrain scrape your skin, but you don't care. Why did she have to care about you so much? Why the hell did she jump in front of you like that?! Your dream self is alive! You could be revived! But hers is dead. You were so sad when you finally awoke on Prospit just to find that her dream self was already gone. “How could you be so foolish?”

Even if you were unable to be revived... her life is worth more than yours. She is stronger than you, more charming, and more of an asset to your team. You're just a screw-up. You were a freak from the moment you were hatched, and when push comes to shove you are unable to escape that fact. 

The tears keep coming, and soon you are a complete mess. Your knees to your chest and your face in your hands, you sob loudly. Every once in a while you glance at her, but it just makes you cry harder. You hate yourself. It's all your fault she's gone.

_Kiss her._

  
The thought crosses your mind, and you sniffle and force yourself to look at her face once again. Wait. That isn’t your thought, is it? It’s that voice again...

  
_Kiss her._

  
It repeats itself. _Why?_ , you think back, although you are not sure if the voice can hear you. _Her dream self is dead. It will do no good._

  
No response. This voice is not very patient with you. It seems it’s given up already. At least it served as enough of a distraction to calm your crying a bit. It is now just a silent, constant stream of tears. You inch a bit closer to Porrim’s face. Could kissing her really do anything...?

  
You suppose you might as well. If there is even a slim chance of reviving her, you will do what you can.

  
You very delicately caress her torso in your arms and pull her up a bit. Even though she is dead, even though you have never had any sort of romantic interest in her, even though you have never kissed anyone before, for some reason you are not the slightest bit nervous. You are sad, but not uncomfortable as you might have expected. It feels oddly natural.

  
You slowly lean down, close your eyes, and gently press your lips to hers. You stay that way for probably about ten seconds before pulling away. You open your eyes and more red tears fall down onto her. You wipe them away and stroke her cheek as if she could actually feel you comforting her. You just sit there and hold her for a few minutes. You don’t want to let go. But eventually, you must. A boy cannot sit around and hug a corpse all day, after all.

  
You move a little ways away from her body and contemplate what to do next. Perhaps you should open a memo. But you aren’t sure you can bear to admit to everyone that you just allowed your dear friend to die for you. You would be so ashamed, and they would be furious with you, you’re sure. They will have to know eventually, of course, but you don’t think that is the right way to go about telling them. At least not right now.

  
And then there is the matter of the slight chance that your kiss could work. If she is somehow revived via dream self, this body would not move. Yet you don’t feel right just going back to your own planet and leaving her here. You are compelled to stay.

  
So you just sit in silence, and wait. You don’t know what you are waiting for, but you are waiting. Perhaps for Porrim’s deceased dream self to come and tell you she is okay, or perhaps for somebody to send you a message on Trollian and force you to move on. You really don’t know. You sit for a long time, your mind somehow simultaneously feeling empty while also swimming with thoughts.

  
You don’t know how long it has been before you think you see something out of the corner of your eye. You quickly retrieve your gun and stand up, ready to kill more imps or ogres if necessary. You will protect Porrim, even if she is just a cadaver. You look all around you, but you don’t see anything. It almost seems to just be you and Porrim alone on this planet. You really thought you saw something, though...

  
You lower your weapon. Maybe you should just leave. You’re torturing yourself by staying here. Maybe you’ll see if Latula will come meet you on your planet, and you can tell her what happened. If you’d be able to tell anyone, you think it would be her. You feel your eyes begin to well up with tears again at the thought. Doing that would really mean admitting that Porrim is gone. Your best friend. And it’s your fault.

  
You look over at her body. You want to give her one last embrace before you leave. As you step closer, though, you notice that something is different. It’s faint, and you have to rub the tears out of your eyes to be sure you aren’t seeing things, but... she’s glowing.

  
Your eyebrows furrow in confusion and you kneel down by her side. You don’t touch her, but you do call out to her. “Porrim...?” She doesn’t respond, of course, but the glow is slowly but surely getting brighter.

  
You have never seen a dead troll before now. But you do consider yourself to be well-educated, and in all the books you’ve ever read (hell, even in all the movies and TV shows you’ve ever seen), you have never heard of a dead body glowing. Could this have something to do with Sgrub?

  
Porrim’s body continues to glow brighter and brighter to the point that you have to squint because it is starting to hurt your eyes. Her skin has completely changed from gray to paper white.

  
Suddenly, her chest moves. She breathes in a heavy breath through her mouth. You are so stunned that all you can do is sit there, dumbfounded with your mouth hanging open and your eyes wide (even if the glow of her body is still hurting them a bit). She groans softly, and shifts. It’s as if she’s waking up from a nap. Her eyes slowly open. You are shocked to see that they are a bright, glowing yellow rather than their previous shade of orange. She blinks a few times and then looks up at you.

“...Kanny?”

  
“Porrim!” Without any thought or hesitation, you immediately begin sobbing again and lean down to hold her up and hug her as tightly as you can. You feel her return your hug. She rubs your back soothingly, and then moves her hand up to run through your hair.

  
“Hey, it’s okay,” she says softly. “Don’t cry, Kankri. I’m here.”

  
You weep onto her shoulder and wipe your tears off of her with your sleeve. It's distressing how many times you have had to do that now. “But how?” you manage to ask between shaky breaths.

  
She pulls away from you a bit so you can look each other in the eyes, but she doesn’t let go of you. “Well, because of you,” she says with a smile.

“I don’t understand.” You are racking your brain for an explanation. Her dream self is dead. And why is she glowing?

  
“Well,” she moves one arm from around your waist and points at your lips. “It looks like you performed the kiss of life.”

  
You reach up and touch your lips. When you pull your fingers away and look down, you are embarrassed to see smears of jade green. Her lipstick. You feel your face flush and you look away from her. “Well, yes. I did.” You wipe your lips until you’re sure you’ve gotten all the lipstick off. “But, please don’t take it to mean—“ You glance up at her, and then down at your lap, then at her again, then off in the distance. You can’t keep eye contact. “Well, I mean... um...” Damn it, why can’t you be more eloquent when speaking aloud?? You really need to work on that.

  
Porrim laughs, but it isn’t cruel. It’s understanding. “Don’t worry, Kanny, I know you didn’t mean it like that. You were only trying to save my life. And you succeeded.” She touches your jaw and moves your face so you have to look at her. Her reassurance makes you feel better, and you are able to keep your gaze steady now.

  
“I just don’t understand how,” you say. “Your dream self is dead. I attempted the kiss knowing it would fail. At least, I thought it would.”

  
She raises an eyebrow. “Kanny, two words: rainbow drinker.”

  
Your eyes widen in shock. “What?! I thought they were just a legend!” You look her up and down. “Is that why your skin has taken on this glow?”

  
She laughs again. “They are real. And yes, they glow. Haven’t you read anything about rainbow drinkers? I could have lent you some of my books. I thought you liked to read.”

  
“I do!” you say, defensive. “But I don’t read things like that! All those books are so... well, smutty.” You blush even harder than you did before. The thought of romance (or god forbid, sex) makes you incredibly uncomfortable.

  
“Oh, Kanny.” She tousles your hair, and you would normally object to such a condescending gesture, but you are too glad she is alive to be upset. You just lean back in for a proper hug again, and again she reciprocates.

  
You hold each other for a good few minutes, both grateful for each other’s company (and the fact that you are both alive). Eventually you pull away, unsure how to proceed from here. “So, being a rainbow drinker... does that mean you’re going to have to, um... drink blood now?” You squirm uneasily.

  
“Well...” Porrim contemplates your question. “I suppose I don’t _have_ to. Rainbow drinkers are perfectly able to sustain themselves on regular food.” You nod. You don’t doubt that Porrim knows her facts on this topic. You always got the feeling that she secretly wanted to be a rainbow drinker herself. Or perhaps she wanted a matespritship or kismesitude with one? Perhaps both. The bottom line is that she knows quite a lot about them. You think that maybe you should have read a bit too, since they are apparently real. You hope your ignorance wasn’t offensive to your friend. You’re snapped out of your thoughts when she continues speaking. “But blood is good for them— or I suppose I should be saying us, or even just me considering Beforus is gone now. Anyway, rainbow drinkers derive energy from blood. I guess you could consider drinking blood to be a healthy diet.”

  
You feel a bit queasy. But you are not one to be insensitive to others’ needs, especially your friends. “Then does that mean you _want_ to drink blood?” you ask.

  
Her eyes drift downwards to your neck. “To be perfectly honest, I am feeling a craving for it.”

  
“Oh.”

  
You carefully think this over. The idea of having your blood sucked out of your body and drank by your best friend is not particularly appealing to you. It sounds painful, not to mention embarrassing. You logically know that Porrim doesn’t care about the color of your blood, but that doesn’t mean you’re eager to go spilling it everywhere. There is a reason you prefer to only wear shades of black and gray. You are not proud of your mutation, even if you wish you were confident enough to be. Though you would never admit it, you secretly wish you had been born into another caste. Perhaps even jade. Being a male jade blood would be a far more preferable rarity than being the only one of your kind with this weird off-color red pumping through your veins. You really don’t like blood in general. On the other hand, you are responsible for Porrim’s transformation into a rainbow drinker. You feel like it would be selfish to deny her this. You can give it a try, if only this once.

  
You swallow your anxiety. “If you’d like, you could have some of mine,” you say timidly.

  
She looks taken aback, as if she didn’t expect you to offer this. Crap. Did you just make this weird? Fuck.

“Are you sure, Kankri? You really don’t have to do that.”

You hesitate for a moment, then nod. “I would like to do it for you, Porrim.”

She seems uncertain. She is biting her bottom lip— not hard enough to draw her own blood, of course. “You’re really sure?”

“I am sure,” you say, more confidently this time.

“Okay.” Porrim nods. “But if you want me to stop, please tell me, and I will. Okay? Don’t be afraid to ask me to stop.”

You smile. “Okay, Porrim.”

She moves closer and gently but firmly places her hands on your shoulders. You find yourself trembling a bit but try to still yourself. You don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. You are just nervous. The hair on the back of your neck stands up when she leans in close enough for you to feel her breath on your neck.

“Are you ready?” she asks.

You nod. “Yes. Go ahead.”

You feel her mouth on the side of your neck for a moment, but before you have the chance to feel uncomfortable, she bites you. You are unable to stop yourself from initially crying out, but you quickly shut yourself up by biting your lip. You’re still whimpering though, and tears prick at your eyes yet again. It hurts. You suppose this is what you should have expected. Although it isn’t _excruciating_ , it is still very painful. Luckily, though, that doesn’t last long. As soon as she pulls her fangs out of your neck, the pain begins to subside a bit. You can feel your blood beginning to drip down out of the newly punctured holes. You are unfortunately just as embarrassed as you had feared you would be. You hope she isn’t actually looking at it, although you realize that this is a silly notion, considering that she is about to _drink_ it.

Her lips cover the entire wound, including the dripping blood, and she begins to suck more out of you. Oddly, the pain has all but vanished relatively quickly. The sensation is eerily soothing. Could it be that you are becoming light-headed from blood loss? Are you really losing enough for that to be the case? You trust Porrim not to take an amount that would cause you any serious harm. Your body eventually relaxes and you simply allow her to drink. It starts to feel... nice.

You think you are beginning to understand why rainbow drinkers are so heavily romanticized.

“U-um, Porrim,” you stutter out. “I would appreciate it if you stopped now, I am starting to become uncomfortable.”

She immediately pulls away from you and looks into your eyes. Her body’s glow still burns them a bit. “I’m so sorry, Kankri! Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

You shake your head. “I’m fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just... done. I hope that’s alright.”

She smiles gently. “It’s more than alright, Kanny. You’ve already done more for me than I ever would have asked of you.” She ruffles your hair again, and then swipes away the small amount of blood still leaking out of the holes on your neck. “Don’t worry about this. It will heal completely,” she assures you. You assume she knows this from her reading. You don’t bother to ask. She sucks the remaining blood off of her fingertips. You look away.

“So...” You swallow. “How was it?”

“It was certainly interesting,” she says. “It satisfied my craving, that’s for sure. I wonder if castes taste different from each other. I have reason to believe they do.”

“Okay, that’s enough talk about castes,” you say shortly, finally allowing yourself to be slightly annoyed with her now that you know she is alive and well.

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

You nod. Your fingers reach up to brush over the wounds on your neck. It stings a bit when you touch it. “Look, can you just... not tell anyone about this? I mean, obviously you, or we, if you prefer, will have to explain what happened to you, but just the actual... drinking part. Can you not mention it to anyone?”

“Of course, Kanny,” she says, and you smile at each other. Her eyes dart down to your neck once again. “I’ll make your sweater a turtleneck.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think Kankri is a really interesting character and I have a lot of headcanons about him.
> 
> From the beginning of the Sgrub session to the end, Kankri probably changed the most out of everyone on his team. He was originally very insecure and held a lot of self-loathing, so he really wasn't super different from Karkat. But the differences between their two societies affected the way they dealt with their issues. He was never chosen by a lusus and was instead culled and raised by a highblood whom he heavily resented. Just about everyone on his planet treated him like he was less than, even lowbloods. Like he needed to be babied by society just to survive. So he had to prove that he was capable.
> 
> Eventually he slowly became more confident in himself and who he was, mutant blood at all, that he became the arrogant, self-satisfied Kankri we all know and love/hate today. I think he has sympathetic motivations for why he is the way he is.
> 
> Just wanted to share that! Hope you enjoyed the fic!


End file.
